


Solitude

by Coiriuil



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-24
Updated: 2014-07-24
Packaged: 2018-02-10 06:21:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2014362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coiriuil/pseuds/Coiriuil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock took up some strange habits in the wake of Jim's death. Some a bit more...destructive... than others. ( Implied  suicidal thoughts, intent to act upon them. ) Short. Drabble-ish I guess.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Solitude

Sherlock didn’t have any legitimate reasons.

This fact endlessly troubled him, as he was so used to being the only reasonable individual in the room, or rather, the world.

But no good reason ever came to him as to why he left Baker Street every morning at precisely one in the morning, making it to the lobby of Bart’s by 1:23, and the roof by 1:45.

No good reason.

It had crossed his mind, those many nights on the rooftop, that perhaps it was nostalgia, or the simple rush of standing on the edge, knowing that this time he didn’t have to step off.

But all signs rather insistently pointed to loneliness.

Sherlock shook his head, trying, as always, to clear his thoughts. He stooped down, one elbow resting on his knee as his fingers traced the outline of a bloodstain that was no longer there. He could imagine it quite clearly, Moriarty’s rigid form, eyes open as he stared at nothing in particular, gun in hand. Sherlock’s palm laid flat on the spot where Jim’s heart would have been, before continuing to trace, almost reverently, the shape of the weapon that had ended his life, and somehow…

Sherlock’s as well.

This was where he had lost his only equal, where the game had come to an abrupt and screeching halt, casting Sherlock back into the cold and bleak existence of a man incurably alone.

He ought to have been used to it. He’d been one in roughly seven billion for all his life, and it made no sense to think that after a few short months the prospect of returning to what ought to have been a second nature of inert, solitary suffering would feel so entirely alien to Sherlock.

And yet it felt new, and if possible, more crippling than it had ever been before.

Oh, how he had loved the chase. He’d loved every carefully laid insinuation, every tiny seed of doubt his favourite distraction had sewn, lying quietly in wait for Sherlock to make all the perfectly orchestrated wrong moves as Jim’s plan fell effortlessly into place.

He had been content to lose to such a thrilling opponent.

But the game had ended far too soon, and in a manner Sherlock had never thought to consider occurring. Jim had been so unbelievably, marvelously different, and to die in such an ungraceful, ordinary manner had been the largest disappointment of all.

How could he? How could he build himself up, the false idol of Sherlock’s mind, just to crash and burn with little more than a handshake and a smile?

Sherlock hated him for that, for making him feel alive just to smother that small spark in a gunshot and splash of crimson.

Sherlock stood, walking, as always, to the very place he had stood almost three years ago, the toes of his Italian leather loafers hanging over the edge as he looked down on the boringly empty and stationary city beneath him. He sighed, sitting down with his legs dangling above the quiet streets, his head falling into his hands as he let out a frustrated groan. Loneliness was much harder to endure when you had tasted the alternative, the absolute sense of wholeness in having found your counterpart.

Jim had inspired Sherlock to live instead of simply surviving day to day, taught him to fly-

And then clipped his wings. And now the consulting detective was left to wander, a crippled angel drowned in the deafening silence of his own endlessly bleeding, and unfortunately still-beating heart.

It would be rather simple, Sherlock thought… To do it right this time, to do as Jim had initially requested. After all there was not much of a point to living when your purpose had been eliminated. Why live for nothing when you could die for something?

Perhaps James had saved him a seat in hell. Whether it would be beside him or beneath him, Sherlock couldn’t decide. Both were equally likely, as in the end, Sherlock had proved a disappointment.

He stood at this point, as he always did, but this time he had decided not to waste his time any longer, decided not to return to Baker Street by 3:25, falling into bed and burying his face in his pillow long enough to let out the wounded cry of unending solitude, before drifting into an unsatisfactory sleep.

No, this time, He intended to make it right.

Maybe it wouldn’t hurt too much if he focused on the thrill of the fall, instead of the inevitable impact.

Sherlock closed his eyes and took a breath, rocking back on his heels and raising his arms, palms facing forward, a mirror of Christ on the crucifix. Fitting, given the esteem Jim had held him in. Better to go out in the terms Jim so loved to apply to him.

“Sherlock.” The name echoed through Sherlock’s skull, the familiar lilt drawing a laugh from Sherlock’s slightly parted lips. How very polite of his subconscious, dredging up such a stunning hallucination to see him out of his torment.

“Oh that’s very good..I filed that accent away quite carefully, lovely to see it so well preserved in my time of need..” Sherlock murmured.

Jim furrowed his eyebrows. He’d been watching Sherlock very carefully these few months, watching as he returned to the rooftop night after night, watching as his fingers very nearly worshipped the place where his ‘body’ had lain. He had watched as Sherlock eyed London, in its darkest hours, as his darkest thoughts flitted rather obviously across his telling features. Before, his resolve had been cracked and thin, always ending with a groan and a hand scrubbed over his face as he stepped down from the precipice, and Jim finally was able to take a breath and watch as Sherlock returned to Baker Street.

But this time there had been determination, conviction, and Jim couldn’t restrain himself from joining him on the rooftop.

“Sherlock, come here…” Jim continued, concern lacing his voice as he attempted to call into effect his regular, flirting tones.

“I can’t…But perhaps I’ll see you soon..” Sherlock murmured, leaning forward dangerously in a way that made Jim spring forward, grasping the back of Sherlock’s ridiculous coat.

“Sherlock!” He hissed, yanking the taller man backward. He fell rather ungracefully against Jim’s chest, his eyes opening and his cerulean gaze vacant for a moment before finding Jim’s. His mouth came open in an ‘O’, disbelief clear in the set of his face.

“Jim?” Sherlock’s tone was incredulous, mixed with something very similar to relief. His open disregard to showing Jim his weakness lasted merely a second before he stood up, shoving himself away from Jim.

“This is real?” his eyes were alight and Jim actually found himself swallowing warily at the unadulterated betrayal and anger in his voice.

“Very.” Jim said simply, slipping his hands into his pockets. 

"Sorry I couldn’t make it sooner, darling. I’ve been busy.” Sherlock’s eyes narrowed before he turned away, running both hands through his already unruly hair.

“I exhausted….every possibility, Jim. I went through each scenario and none of them made sense. I spent two years trying to figure any way you could possibly have survived and I found none.”

Jim glanced at the ground, before flicking his eyes up to the back of Sherlock’s head.

“I’ll tell you how I did it, if that’s what you-“ Sherlock whirled around suddenly, his face lined with equal parts betrayal and pain.

“How could you not tell me?” Sherlock took several long strides forward, looming above Jim with a look on his face that unsettled even the emotionally distant consulting criminal.

“You’re not one to just pop up at the perfect moment, which leads me to believe you’ve been watching for quite a long time, James. You..You saw. You saw how I reacted. You watched me torture myself night after night, and not once could you find it in yourself to assuage me?” Jim’s eyebrows drew together, Sherlock’s uncharacteristic display unnerving him in a way that didn’t usually happen to him.

Something in Jim seemed to shift, his long silent, repressed thoughts concerning the detective stirring as they recognized reciprocation. Jim had never allowed himself to consider the fact that perhaps Sherlock harbored the same desire, the same need for an intellectual equal. Now, in Sherlock’s moment of undisguised anguish, the possibility presented itself in sharp relief, enough that Jim found himself reaching out, and shockingly, Sherlock mirroring the action. Fingers curled into dark hair, Jim’s immaculate gelled locks finding relief in Sherlock’s methods of dishevelment, and Jim nearly sighing at the long denied sensation of those raven curls finally slipping into hand. A few phrases were mumbled, a fact that neither would later confess to having uttered, but language was a barrier that needn’t be set up, and was abandoned as lips pressed to collar bones, and later to jawlines and mouths, if not in that particular order. Reunion was not the word to use, but union may have been. Jim found peace in the nearly silent recognition of two halves fusing into one unhealthy but necessary whole, and Sherlock found clarity in the twining of two parts into a singular,unified being.

Tonight, Sherlock would not be falling alone.


End file.
